6 ms·

chiming in here to corroborate that stimulant use/abuse is heavily prevalent in scientists and startup types that i know. even the md/phd types who have been i

chiming in here to corroborate that stimulant use/abuse is heavily prevalent in scientists and startup types that i know. even the md/phd types who have been in clinical practice for 20 years do it, even after they've had kids etc. most only abuse coffee-- you can tell because the norm is to drink coffee until you're literally red in the face when there is serious work to get done. there are people who abstain, of course. they aren't looked down on, but they're probably not as productive on average. coffee isn't bad at all. but plenty of others use/abuse prescription stimulants too, usually a bit more clandestinely in my experience. but if you know what to look for it's easy to tell when they're on them. it makes sense. the point where people need stimulants the most is in synthesizing experimental insights into new hypotheses in light of other literature. it takes a lot of brainpower to keep trucking... you can take a crack at it without stimulants, but you'll run out of steam quickly. as far as the downside, a handful of people binge drink to come down, but it isn't the norm, except during social events. there are a few who smoke weed / take xanax at work to calm down, but these are frowned upon somewhat.

Eilene 9y ago
So is it almost impossible to be a top scientist in your field if you don't get some help so that you can have those epiphany-producing insights, etc?
- geofft 9y ago
  I... doubt that's true. I imagine there are people who think that this help will help them become top scientists (and maybe we should have a talk about the pressure to succeed etc.). But I suspect that a lot of the actual top scientists are plain good at what they do, and they neither need nor want the effects of drugs in their work. (Which is very different from recreational use, of course, or recreational use turning into addiction.)
  - Eilene 9y ago
    Part of what I'm trying to determine is if that pressure to succeed makes people believe they need something to be competitive. My daughter, for example, sometimes feels like she's at a disadvantage at college because so many of her peers are taking adderall (w/o a prescription) for tests and studying. Is it the same after college, professionally?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - orangehour 9y ago
      I'm in my last semester of college as a Computer Science student. I know a ridiculously large number of people who use adderall or vyvanse to gain a competitive edge.
      - Eilene 9y ago
        Does that make you feel you should be using something too?
        orangehour 9y ago
        No. I think that I would enjoy them too much, so I know I shouldn't participate. Also, I still do better on exams than most of the people I know who use these, so it seems unnecessary.
    - cgiles 9y ago
      IME, in academic biology, the answer is generally no. Personally, I do use, but it isn't a result of competition, but rather a desire to achieve the most I can for a goal I care about. I don't feel pressured in any way to make this decision; if anything, the pressure is slightly in the other direction. The big trouble with it is that a drug -- any drug -- will alter your perception of the world such that it is difficult to know with absolute confidence whether you are taking the drug for purely rational reasons to further your personal goals...or not. Amphetamines at least, based on my experience and reading of the literature, improve your ability to do huge amounts of light/easy work at the expense of "deep" thinking. This means that they would be most effective for people who are knee-deep in work that is too easy for them and need to get more throughput. Undergrad is exactly this -- tons of relatively easy work. Professional life is not; quality is in the long term valued over shitty quantity. I hope your article won't be a complete hatchet job on white-collar drug use -- the reality is very complex. Humans in general, and white-collar workers in particular, are living in environments and doing things extremely different from what humans evolved for. Thus, some of us use drugs to tweak our biology to adapt to the situation. Assuming that these do in fact improve performance -- a very disputable assumption -- this would be a success story for human intelligence and adaptability.
  - Blahah 9y ago
    I was at Cambridge for 4 years and I can safely say that none of the professors in my department were using stimulants other than coffee. I can clock someone who is up across a crowded room. None of them were ever up. A large number of the ambitious PhD students and postdocs were though, and a very large proportion of the undergraduates. I think it's probably a generational thing. Students sell to students. Nobody is selling to professors, and even if they tried, those people have already achieved their success in a generation of people that didn't have access to these things. I think we will see a generation of people come into these positions (e.g. professorships) where a significant proportion of them are using pharmaceutical enhancement as one of the many tools in their box. Stimulants aren't magic, they don't make idiots clever. But if you're a clever person who is tired or stressed, they can (seem to) make a big difference.
    - Eilene 9y ago
      how can you tell if someone is up? Just from years of using stimulants yourself or are there obvious, telltale signs? I missed a boatload of them with Peter.
      - Blahah 9y ago
        Dilated pupils. Tense jaw. Muscles around the eyes are slightly more tense (small wrinkles temporarily disappear for example). People react faster and speak more coherently (or if they took too much, incoherently but very fast). Dry mouth (very slight lisping or tongue sticking when they talk). Straighter back, clenched fists, grasping or fidgeting hands that they don't normally have. A general appearance of alertness. Unusually impressive performance in a social situation. Some combination of the above, but it's pretty obvious once you get used to it. At the same time, I'm pretty sure many people in my life have no idea that I take stimulants (though as I said, I don't hide it), but just see me as being at my best when I'm on them.
        Eilene 9y ago
        understood, thanks.
        deleted 9y ago
foldr 9y ago
>most only abuse coffee-- you can tell because the norm is to drink coffee until you're literally red in the face when there is serious work to get done. That doesn't make sense. Being tweaked on caffeine doesn't make you more productive. It doesn't even make you feel more productive.
cgiles 9y ago
> a handful of people binge drink to come down Biologist here, and yep, that was the only real discernible downside to me. Especially when I was new to the drug (Adderall) and didn't know how to time the doses and therefore took them too late in the day, I would get a powerful urge to drink about 3-5 hours after the last dose to come down. However, if you dose early enough in the day you will come down naturally. Besides the desire to "drink to come down", the other problem is that Adderall will make you feel clearer and more energetic for longer while drinking, making it easier to miss the warning signs that you are approaching (or have passed) the "too much" threshold. I am not aware of stimulant use being very common among the people I work with, and you are absolutely right that it is easy to tell the symptoms. Relevant article: https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080409/full/452674a.html https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080409/full/452674a.html If ~20% of biologists (broadly speaking, and higher in younger cohorts) "have used" a drug to enhance performance, then the number regularly using must be lower, unless there is selection bias in this informal poll, and if there was I would suspect the bias would be towards an overestimate of use, as people interested in the question seem more likely to respond. Overall, then, I would guess use in these fields is "semi-rare" (maybe 5-10% of the population are regular users).
kelnos 9y ago
> there are a few who smoke weed / take xanax at work to calm down, but these are frowned upon somewhat. I find that attitude hilarious. Rampant stimulant abuse is the norm and is accepted, but combining with another drug to calm down is a no-no? Amazing.

Eilene 9y ago

So is it almost impossible to be a top scientist in your field if you don't get some help so that you can have those epiphany-producing insights, etc?

geofft 9y ago
I... doubt that's true. I imagine there are people who think that this help will help them become top scientists (and maybe we should have a talk about the pressure to succeed etc.). But I suspect that a lot of the actual top scientists are plain good at what they do, and they neither need nor want the effects of drugs in their work. (Which is very different from recreational use, of course, or recreational use turning into addiction.)
- Eilene 9y ago
  Part of what I'm trying to determine is if that pressure to succeed makes people believe they need something to be competitive. My daughter, for example, sometimes feels like she's at a disadvantage at college because so many of her peers are taking adderall (w/o a prescription) for tests and studying. Is it the same after college, professionally?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - orangehour 9y ago
    I'm in my last semester of college as a Computer Science student. I know a ridiculously large number of people who use adderall or vyvanse to gain a competitive edge.
    - Eilene 9y ago
      Does that make you feel you should be using something too?
      - orangehour 9y ago
        No. I think that I would enjoy them too much, so I know I shouldn't participate. Also, I still do better on exams than most of the people I know who use these, so it seems unnecessary.
  - cgiles 9y ago
    IME, in academic biology, the answer is generally no. Personally, I do use, but it isn't a result of competition, but rather a desire to achieve the most I can for a goal I care about. I don't feel pressured in any way to make this decision; if anything, the pressure is slightly in the other direction. The big trouble with it is that a drug -- any drug -- will alter your perception of the world such that it is difficult to know with absolute confidence whether you are taking the drug for purely rational reasons to further your personal goals...or not. Amphetamines at least, based on my experience and reading of the literature, improve your ability to do huge amounts of light/easy work at the expense of "deep" thinking. This means that they would be most effective for people who are knee-deep in work that is too easy for them and need to get more throughput. Undergrad is exactly this -- tons of relatively easy work. Professional life is not; quality is in the long term valued over shitty quantity. I hope your article won't be a complete hatchet job on white-collar drug use -- the reality is very complex. Humans in general, and white-collar workers in particular, are living in environments and doing things extremely different from what humans evolved for. Thus, some of us use drugs to tweak our biology to adapt to the situation. Assuming that these do in fact improve performance -- a very disputable assumption -- this would be a success story for human intelligence and adaptability.
- Blahah 9y ago
  I was at Cambridge for 4 years and I can safely say that none of the professors in my department were using stimulants other than coffee. I can clock someone who is up across a crowded room. None of them were ever up. A large number of the ambitious PhD students and postdocs were though, and a very large proportion of the undergraduates. I think it's probably a generational thing. Students sell to students. Nobody is selling to professors, and even if they tried, those people have already achieved their success in a generation of people that didn't have access to these things. I think we will see a generation of people come into these positions (e.g. professorships) where a significant proportion of them are using pharmaceutical enhancement as one of the many tools in their box. Stimulants aren't magic, they don't make idiots clever. But if you're a clever person who is tired or stressed, they can (seem to) make a big difference.
  - Eilene 9y ago
    how can you tell if someone is up? Just from years of using stimulants yourself or are there obvious, telltale signs? I missed a boatload of them with Peter.
    - Blahah 9y ago
      Dilated pupils. Tense jaw. Muscles around the eyes are slightly more tense (small wrinkles temporarily disappear for example). People react faster and speak more coherently (or if they took too much, incoherently but very fast). Dry mouth (very slight lisping or tongue sticking when they talk). Straighter back, clenched fists, grasping or fidgeting hands that they don't normally have. A general appearance of alertness. Unusually impressive performance in a social situation. Some combination of the above, but it's pretty obvious once you get used to it. At the same time, I'm pretty sure many people in my life have no idea that I take stimulants (though as I said, I don't hide it), but just see me as being at my best when I'm on them.
      - Eilene 9y ago
        understood, thanks.
      - deleted 9y ago

foldr 9y ago

>most only abuse coffee-- you can tell because the norm is to drink coffee until you're literally red in the face when there is serious work to get done. That doesn't make sense. Being tweaked on caffeine doesn't make you more productive. It doesn't even make you feel more productive.

cgiles 9y ago

> a handful of people binge drink to come down Biologist here, and yep, that was the only real discernible downside to me. Especially when I was new to the drug (Adderall) and didn't know how to time the doses and therefore took them too late in the day, I would get a powerful urge to drink about 3-5 hours after the last dose to come down. However, if you dose early enough in the day you will come down naturally. Besides the desire to "drink to come down", the other problem is that Adderall will make you feel clearer and more energetic for longer while drinking, making it easier to miss the warning signs that you are approaching (or have passed) the "too much" threshold. I am not aware of stimulant use being very common among the people I work with, and you are absolutely right that it is easy to tell the symptoms. Relevant article: https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080409/full/452674a.html https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080409/full/452674a.html If ~20% of biologists (broadly speaking, and higher in younger cohorts) "have used" a drug to enhance performance, then the number regularly using must be lower, unless there is selection bias in this informal poll, and if there was I would suspect the bias would be towards an overestimate of use, as people interested in the question seem more likely to respond. Overall, then, I would guess use in these fields is "semi-rare" (maybe 5-10% of the population are regular users).

kelnos 9y ago

> there are a few who smoke weed / take xanax at work to calm down, but these are frowned upon somewhat. I find that attitude hilarious. Rampant stimulant abuse is the norm and is accepted, but combining with another drug to calm down is a no-no? Amazing.